May 24–31, 2001

cd reviews|hip-hop

Rasheeda

Dirty South

(Motown)

Motown would have you believe the opposite, but songs that rhyme should not automatically be called hip-hop. Hip-hop is finding newer, deffer ways to say old things. And finding newer, deffer ways to say new things. Rasheeda’s first album, Dirty South, is pop music, with overused colloquialisms tiresomely stretched out into verses. And even these verses are shorter than the lengthy, redundant choruses. Maintaining breath control throughout, Rasheeda is fierce and full of the type of stamina it takes to posture successfully. And the production is full of suitably booty-shaking, car-thumping bass. And that might be enough for south of the Mason-Dixon, where anything that rebukes Bible Belt dogma and its socially rigid climate is deemed acceptable. But Dirty South is unstimulating ooze. Promoted as rap music, it can only hurt already-shaky hip-hop standards. Somewhere in Atlanta, a female MC is heated because she can blaze mics while the scarcely skilled, highly marketable Rasheeda got signed and became an unfair representation of the depth of lyricism the state has to offer.

—Hamida Kinge